In an analysis written for Tablet Magazine Thursday, Lee Smith argues that since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu  no longer has to expend effort on negotiations with the Palestinians, he is freed to concentrate on the other “permanent threat” to Israel, Iran. Still, Smith does not see an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities as imminent.

Smith observes that contrary to a common misconception, Netanyahu actually is cautious when it comes to using force.

“Netanyahu is genuinely concerned about Iran because he believes himself to be responsible for the fate of the Jewish people,” Einat Wilf, a onetime member of the Knesset with the Labor/Independence party told me last week in Washington. Since she is a politician from the left-wing of Israel’s political spectrum, it’s hardly natural that she’d come to the defense of an ideological rival, whose critics often paint him as a warmonger—but she does. “Netanyahu is an extremely prudent politician,” said Wilf, an adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Members of the right and security hawks initially criticized him for how he handled Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012, that he didn’t send in ground troops and root out Hamas once and for all. But that’s not his style. He massed thousands of troops on the borders and showed he was willing to use them. But then he got the ceasefire he wanted and pulled back.”

Although Netanyahu views Iran as the most serious threat facing Israel right now, Smith expects him to continue exercising restraint and avoiding a major strike against Iran, despite indications that a bad deal between the P5+1 and Iran could prompt Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

But there will almost surely not be an Israeli strike. Instead, as I’ve argued here before, Jerusalem may have already moved to an active campaign of deterrence, which means giving neither Iran nor its allies any quarter. Covert warfare, assassinations, targeting convoys carrying strategic weapons to Hezbollah across the Syrian border, interdicting arms shipments at sea—all these tactics are about drawing clear red lines to show Tehran that any misstep will result in much worse for Iran.

According to Smith, it isn’t Netanyahu’s goal to save the world from Iran, but to do “his job to protect Israeli citizens, which means trying his utmost to keep the country out of conflict while also enhancing its prosperity.”

[Photo: Israel Defense Forces / Flickr ]